Jennifer L. Rodgers is a Ph.D. candidate in History at the University of Pennsylvania, and lives in both Philadelphia and Munich. She received a Master of Arts degree in History from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in German and European Studies from American University. For her European Holocaust Research Infrastructure Fellowship at the Mémorial de la Shoah in Paris, France, Ms. Rodgers is conducting research for her dissertation: ‘From the “Archive of Horror” to the “Shop Window of Democracy”: The International Tracing Service and the Transatlantic Politics of the Past in the Cold War Era’.

Ms. Rodgers is the author of two forthcoming articles on the International Tracing Service and co-author of ‘Paris sur l’axe Paris-Kiev’ in Le Festin du Reich: Le pillage de la France occupée (1940-1945), by Fabrizio Calvi and Marc Masurovsky (Paris, France: Fayard, 2007). She was assistant editor of the 2001 Americana in German Archives (German Historical Institute Reference Guide Number 12), edited by Christoph Mauch and Thomas Reuther (Washington DC, USA: German Historical Institute, 2001). She also wrote articles on non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust for United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s website and online encyclopedia. Ms. Rodgers has presented extensively on her project in the United States and across Europe, including ‘Pulling the Carpet out from under Mistrust Abroad: The International Tracing Service and the Normalization of German Foreign Relations’ (Annual Meeting of the German Studies Association; Louisville, KY), and ‘Der Internationale Suchdienst und Transnationale Vergangenheitspolitik, 1945-2006’ (Lecture at the Institute for Contemporary History/Abteilung Berlin; Berlin, Germany ). In addition to her fellowship at the Mémorial de la Shoah, Ms. Rodgers has held fellowships from several institutions including the University of Pennsylvania, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the German Historical Institute, the Institut de Hautes Études Internationales et du Développement, Northwestern University and George Washington University’s Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies. Ms. Rodgers has fluent command of German and French, basic Spanish skills and reads Dutch and Italian.

During her tenure at the Mémorial, Ms. Rodgers is conducting research for her dissertation, which investigates how Western governments – Bonn, Washington, Paris, London and Jerusalem – and the Red Cross used the International Tracing Service to promote and legitimize political and cultural agendas in the postwar era, often cloaked in emerging human rights rhetoric. Her research illustrates how the organization that has alternatively carried the name ‘archive of horror’ and ‘shop window of democracy’ reflected larger international considerations and revealed deeper tensions among the West that were intimately connected to the contested legacy of World War II and the Nazi past. Control over the International Tracing Service had immense practical and symbolic significance for Bonn, Washington, Paris, Jerusalem and Geneva. The ITS, containing the documentary evidence of National Socialist persecution and Allied rehabilitation, thus raised important political questions that significantly impacted international relations, the Cold War, European integration and the politics of (Holocaust) memory.

Ms. Rodgers will utilize the institutional archive of the Mémorial, the records of French involvement in the tracing service at the Archives Diplomatiques in Paris and Nantes during her fellowship. In addition, she will consult select documents in the collection of the International Refugee Organization in the Archives Nationales.

Ms. Rodgers was at the Mémorial from September 1, 2012 to October 31, 2012. She may be contacted via email at rodgj@sas.upenn.edu.